IHR Logo
IHR Products

Questionnaires available for download

The Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ)

The "Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing" (SSQ) questionnaire was developed by Stuart Gatehouse and William Noble. It is designed to measure self-reported auditory disability across a wide variety of domains, reflecting the reality of hearing in the everyday world. It covers:

  • hearing speech in a variety of competing contexts;
  • the directional, distance and movement components of spatial hearing
  • segregation of sounds and attending to simultaneous speech streams;
  • ease of listening;
  • the naturalness, clarity and identifiability of different speakers, different musical pieces and instruments, and different everyday sounds.

The SSQ can uncover small differences in function, such as minor departures from normal binaural ability, and has the potential to reveal the sometimes subtle effects that different hearing-aid or cochlear-implant fitting strategies and technology would be expected to have on auditory function.

The primary papers on the SSQ are

We1 have recently developed three new versions of the SSQ in four languages:

Both the SSQ-B and SSQ-C are applicable to any form of intervention, including hearing aids, cochlear implants, and communication training.

To read more about SSQ-B and SSQ-C, download this conference poster:

1The SSQ-B/C consortium was

Our work is dedicated to the memory of Stuart Gatehouse.

2The Dutch version of the SSQ was translated by ExpORL (Dept. Neurowetenschappen, K.U.Leuven, Belgium) and verified by VUMC, Amsterdam; AMC, Amsterdam; Erasmus MC, Rotterdam; and AZ St. Jan, Brugge.

3To read more about the SSQ questionnaires available in German, see:

  • Meis, M., Meister, H. Grugel, L & Kiessling, J (in preperation). "The development of international questionnaires in the field of audiology for German-speaking countries"; Proceedings of the 55th International Congress of Hearing Aid Acousticians in Hanover 2010.
  • Kießling, J., Grugel, L., Meister, H. Meis, M. (2011). German translations of the questionnaires SADL, ECHO and SSQ and their evaluation. German: Übertragung der Fragebögen SADL, ECHO und SSQ ins Deutsche und deren Evaluation. Zeitschrift für Audiologie/Audiological Acoustics, 50(1), pp.6-16.
  • Meis, M., Meister, H., Grugel, L., Kiessling, J. (2010). The development of international questionnaires in the field of audiology for German-speaking countries. Proceedings of the 55th International Congress of Hearing Aid Acousticians - Hanover.

If you have any queries about the SSQ, please contact Michael Akeroyd. If you find it useful, we would appreciate it if you would let us know!

Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile (GHABP)

The GHABP is a self-report questionnaire for assessing aspects of auditory disability, auditory handicap, and hearing-aid benefit. The questions cover scales of initial disability, handicap, hearing aid use, hearing aid benefit, satisfaction, and residual disability. It is designed to be used in routine clinical practice, both for individual patient management and as part of a quality-assurance programme.

Further information can be found in these papers:

  • Gatehouse, S (1999) "Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile: Derivation and validation of a client-centered outcome measure for hearing-aid services", Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 10:80-103.
  • Gatehouse, S (1999). "A self-report outcome measure for the evaluation of hearing-aid fittings and services", Health Bulletin, 57:424-436
Downloads

GHABP Information Package An information package for the English-language test (which includes the questionnaire itself, an expanded response sheet, a worked example, an additional test --- the Glasgow Hearing Aid Difference Profile questionnaire--- and a poster outlining some of the development of the GHABP): (ZIP compression of a Word 95 file: 404kb download, 6Mb uncompressed).

ghabp.doc: The English-language test (Word 95; 30K download)
ghabp-expand.doc: The expanded response sheet for the English language test (Word 95, 12K download)

GHABP Translations: Translations of the GHABP into 10 other languages (Arabic, Catalan, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish) (ZIP compression of a Word 97 file, 70kb download, 561kb uncompressed)

We also have a computer version of the GHABP. It requires Windows 95, a 8-bit display, and 800x600 screen resolution. (Please note that no claims are made regarding the robustness of the software; it is merely a development tool that we are happy to make available to interested parties.)

Executable program : ghabp.exe - (1.2MB download)

Source code : GHABP-Source.zip - (ZIP compression of a Visual-Basic 5 project; 56 kb download, 402 kb uncompressed).

Documentation : Questionnaire program docs - (Zip compression of Word 95 file, 4.2Mb uncompressed)

Glasgow Health Status Questionnaires (GBI & GHSI)

These two questionnaires are the Glasgow Benefit Inventory (GBI) and Glasgow Health Status Inventory (GHSI). The GBI measures the change in health status produced by surgical interventions (here, "health status" is the general perception of well-being, including total psychological, social, and physical well being). The GBI is generic and *not* limited to audiological or ENT use. The GHSI assesses health state, by measuring the effect of a health problem on the quality of life of a person. It allows cross-comparison among many health conditions, among different health interventions, and among demographic and cultural subgroups.

The GBI is a post-intervention questionnaire which assesses the interventions effects on the health status of the patients. The GHSI can be used at any point in time and measures the general quality of life the person experiences and how health problems affect this. While the GBI is maximally sensitive to an change in health status brought about by a specific event (e.g. an operation), the GHSI gives a general measure of the health status of the person at any specific time.

Both questionnaires contain 18 questions which can be completed either in an interview or filled-in by the patient. The interview takes about 10 minutes to complete, while self-administration would be completed in about 5 minutes. However, we advise using the interview technique wherever possible as this leads to more complete and comparable datasets.

Further information can be found in:

  • Robinson K, Gatehouse S and Browning GG (1996) "Measuring patient benefit from otorhinolaryngological surgery and therapy", Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology, 105: 415:422
Downloads

GBI & GHSI An information package for the English-language test (containing the GBI and GHSI questionnaires, worked examples, a paper describing one use in ENT, and some reference data): (Word 97 file: 207kb download)

GBI & GHSI Translation Translations of the GHABP into 7 other languages (Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish) (ZIP compression of a Word 97 file, 193kb download)

Return to the products page
Contact Us      Privacy Information